A Geologist Visits Science!

Before the December vacation, Ms. Rausa's class (1-222), had a special visit from Belle Hallady's grandfather, John Hughes.  He is a mineralogist and a geology professor at the University of Vermont.  Professor Hughes has been involved in the discovery and description of over 40 minerals.  He even had a new mineral named after him - hughesite - from a mine in Colorado.

Hughesite - (Na3Al (V10O28.22H2O)

We found out that minerals are mined, they don't come from plants, animals or any other living thing.

Belle Halladay and her grandfather talking about minerals.

The amazing selection of rocks and minerals that we looked at and that
Professor Hughes left for our school collection!

We write with minerals - graphite.

Three minerals from Belle Halladay's collection.

So many questions!

Who knows what this is?

What color is this?

When a black light is shown on this mineral,
it changes color!  It's a fluorescent mineral.

Susan, Belle Halladay's grandmother (also a professor at UVM),
had us look around the classroom to find things that
had minerals in it.  We found pencils, glass and the wall!

  

We heard about some great websites to look at to learn more about minerals. 

http://www.mineralogy4kids.org/

https://franklinmineralmuseum.com/

http://sterlinghillminingmuseum.org/

And now for the fun part!  

Everyone donned goggles and got ready to smash a geode!

Belle Halladay's mom, Amy, supervises
breaking the geode! Each person gets
three hits with the hammer! 
The geode is in the sock!

The broken geode!  It had white crystals inside.

A big thank you to Belle Halladay's grandparents for such an exciting science class and for the mineral donations to the school!  We hope you will come back next time you are in Brooklyn!